Being Human
by hey-oh
Summary: For Live Long and Prosper: The Star Trek Challenge forum's iPod Writing Challenge. Prompt: Eyes on Fire by Blue Foundation, which I do not own nor am associated with. Tom Paris/Seven of Nine, angsty.


First fic in a new fandom-be gentle!

I don't own anything you recognize.

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><p><em>Tom Paris caught her outside of the Holodeck one day, staring intently into the darkened panel at her reflection. She touched her blonde hair, looked for a long moment at her striking features; the full lips, the crystalline eyes, the perfectly balanced optical enhancer that curled over her right eye. She was classically beautiful, in every way, and Tom couldn't help but cast a glance south. He took in what she had to offer, but strangely enough, it wasn't long before he looked back up again, focusing on what she was doing. <em>

_She curled her lips up into an unmistakable smile, but it wasn't quite right. She stared again, hard; feeling what was wrong in her placement with her fingers, and did it again and again, frowning after each attempt. Tom had to remember that she still wasn't fully human. She was still adjusting to emotional displays. _

_He turned and left her there._

"So what do you think of our newest crewmember?" Harry asked one day over lunch. He was huddled with B'Elanna and Tom at the corner of the mess hall, voices dropped to conspiratorial whispers.

B'Elanna smirked. "We're playing nursemaid to a Borg, Harry. It's not our crewmember."

"Captain seems to think so," another voice interjected, "rumor has it she's turning to Seven of Nine as a sort of 'project'."

They turned and shuffled along the booth, making way for the Talaxian cook, Neelix to take a seat beside them. He leaned conspiratorially on the table, his large face wrinkling into a knowing grin.

"Says she wants to turn her human," he continued.

B'Elanna laughed, her laugh turning high and causing a couple other crewmembers to sneak glances their way. Tom looked at them apologetically, and the half-Klingon Engineer snorted into her coffee.

"Like _that'll _ever happen."

_She was on B Deck, doing what, Tom didn't know. He decided it didn't matter, and walked forward without conversation. She noticed him immediately—absently, he wondered how many of her sensors from her previous days were still there—and nodded curtly. When he nonchalantly passed her and turned the corner, he stopped for a moment. He could almost see her in the reflection of the glass panel by the turbolift. He heard humming, and then the halting strains of "You Are My Sunshine". _

"_My…only sunshine," Seven repeated to herself. "You make me happy"—her voice arched too high into the upper registers, almost a squeak—"you…make me happy…" –the appropriate vocal range this time—"when skies are…when skies are…"_

_Tom has to physically stop himself from blurting out the word "gray", because he's not there, and this is her moment. He had to remember, she's not human, she's Borg; she's an awful hybrid of both that didn't really work._

"Tom Paris," she commented briskly that morning. It was the first morning…no, it was the second morning after…he couldn't remember. All he could think about was her touch, most specifically the cold duranium or whatever-the-hell-it-was wrapped around her right hand, on his face. Then around his arms. Then lower, lower, _lower_—a cough snapped him out of it.

"Seven," he replied, but he couldn't help his face quirking into a smug grin.

Between them, Harry looked from one to the other, and then tried valiantly to pretend that the report from sensor logs on his panel was entirely engrossing.

"_This was a mistake," Tom groans, blinking sleep blearily from his eyes and rubbing at his bedhead hair. This had become a nightly thing, and even though she requests a different position and a different set of things to do, it never got old. Until today. Today felt different. Like…she had checked out. _

"_A mistake?" Seven repeats coldly, her eyes darting here and there. She looks at the viewscreen panel currently showing that it was 1400 hours and he was late for his shift in Sickbay. "You regret our experience?" _

_She sits up in the bed and dons her jumpsuit, fingers flying over the material faster than humanly possible. All the while, she is pointedly ignoring his gaze and instead hyper-focusing on the task at hand. _

"_No, definitely not, Seven," he chuckles, but she does not see the humor. "A mistake on my part to realize that I think I love you and you're just treating this like, like an experiment or something—"_

"_That is irrelevant, love." Seven responds in that same cold, flat voice. "I wished to experience sex, and you obliged me. I was not aware that you wanted more?" _

_Tom can't do anything but stare. "Love isn't irrelevant. Love is the most important thing we have. You've completely missed the point of being human." _

_She is almost at the door, Tom trailing behind her, clutching the sheet. "I am not human," Seven all-but-sneered, and the door swishes shut without another word. _

Their paths crossed again in the hallway a week later, on C Deck. Seven acknowledges him with a barely perceptible tilt of her head, and in his mind Tom remembers her lips on his, his earlobe clenched in her teeth, and the nearly savage way her hands would undress him. He struggled to keep his emotions in check, and shrugged as they passed, each heading to their respective quarters after a long shift. He stopped a few paces and looked back, the words catching in his throat. Sure, they were hurtling through space in the same direction, but that didn't mean they were going to the same place.

Tom turned and continued on to his quarters.


End file.
